Murder Freshly Baked Page 16

  “I understand what you’re saying.” Tate stood and motioned him inside. “But this is my wife we’re talking about, and I’m not waiting to let whatever is accumulating cause her to collapse. We’re going to deal with whatever is wrong today. It’s my job to take care of her, and that’s exactly what I plan to do.”

  Preston thought they were headed inside to dinner—Tate had been stirring a large pot of stew when he arrived. Cornbread was already baked and cooling on the counter. The man was turning into quite the cook, another testament of his love for Amber. He’d told Preston that he actually enjoyed it, that it made him happy to know that Amber was coming home to a warm meal and a snug house.

  But the woman standing in the middle of their living room didn’t look as if she even realized she was in her house. She’d dropped her tablet and purse on the coffee table and was clutching her phone, pacing back and forth, muttering something under her breath.

  “Amber, honey, why don’t you sit down and rest?”

  Amber looked up in confusion, as if she didn’t remember that Preston and Tate were there. As if she was surprised to see her husband in her own living room.

  “Sit?”

  “Yeah. Let’s just sit down together. Dinner probably needs another ten minutes, and Preston and I would like to talk to you.”

  “Talk to me?”

  Instead of answering, Tate led her to the couch, then sat down beside her.

  “Preston stopped by to introduce Mocha, but he’s also worried about you.”

  Amber didn’t reply to that, opting instead to stare at the dog.

  “Hannah told him what happened at the Village today, in her shop. She was worried that you didn’t take it so well.”

  “What does that mean?” Amber asked sharply.

  “I don’t know.” Preston spread his hands out, palms up. “You weren’t acting like your normal take-charge self, I suppose. She was concerned and asked if I knew anything, if you were okay.”

  “Why would you know if I’m okay?”

  Tate sighed. “He works closely with you. Probably Hannah thought he might be able to shed some light on why you’re so stressed. I’m sure she only wanted to help.”

  “Maybe I don’t need any help.” Amber popped up off the couch. “In fact, I’m sure I don’t.”

  “Honey, what’s wrong?”

  To Preston’s dismay he saw tears in Amber’s eyes, but she didn’t give in to them. Instead she tossed her hair and snatched up her tablet and purse. “The only thing wrong is that I need to clean up before dinner. Now, if you’ll excuse me . . .”

  She hurried out of the room before either man could respond.

  Tate stood and moved toward the kitchen, Preston and Mocha in his wake. “I’ve seen her this way once before. It was before I asked her to marry me, when I first told her how much I cared about her. I don’t know if it was the pressure of a new relationship, or the fact she was frightened about jumping into a new phase of her life.” He began to spoon stew from the large pot into bowls, glancing over at Preston as he continued. “It could have even been the last two murder investigations. Amber, she isn’t a cop. She’s a person with a big heart, and sometimes she cares too much. Anyway, she sort of freaked out then too. I had hoped to settle this tonight, but that doesn’t look likely. I think if we give her a few days, she’ll share with us what’s on her mind.”

  Preston nodded, though it seemed to him that a few more days might land Amber in a hospital bed. When she returned to the kitchen, she didn’t eat—opting instead to stir her stew around in her bowl without ever taking a bite. As far as conversation, she limited herself to monosyllables and excused herself before they were half done.

  They finished their meal in silence, and Tate thanked him for coming over and sharing his concerns. As he walked home, Preston had the distinct feeling Tate was fooling himself. Things were not going to get better in a few days. At the rate things were going, they were destined to get much worse.

  Twenty-Three

  Amber waited until Tate’s breathing evened out, until she was sure he was in a deep slumber. Then she slid out from beneath the blankets, donned her robe and slippers, and quietly made her way to the kitchen.

  Flipping on the light over the stove, she placed the teakettle on the burner and set the flame to low. Going through the familiar routine helped to calm her nerves. By the time she had her tea brewed and was sitting at the kitchen table, she knew what needed to be done.

  First she needed to pray. She had to stop dodging this way and that. She had to calm down. It wasn’t as if someone was standing in her home, threatening her family with a knife. But somehow this seemed worse. It was so insidiously evil. What sort of person claimed to put poison in food and frightened people with personal threats?

  But even someone who was that bent on doing harm wasn’t outside of God’s reach. So she prayed—for herself, that she would remain calm, calmer than she had been the last twelve hours. For wisdom, that she would know what to do. For her family, that God would keep them safe. And finally for the person who was bent on evil, that God might soften their heart. Maybe they would turn themselves in! Perhaps they would become convicted of their sin and regret the steps they had taken. Regret could be a fabulous motivator.

  By the time she’d finished praying, her tea was cold, so she popped it into the microwave. Then she retrieved her tablet and a pad of paper. Surely if she thought of this logically, she could find a solution.

  She pulled up the most recent e-mail from her anonymous tormenter.

  At this point you’re probably wondering why you? There are many reasons, but the best is that your life is too perfect.

  That fact, more than any other, irks me.

  When you began poking your nose into my business, I knew I had to step forward and do something.

  I think it’s time for Amber Bowman to eat a little humble pie.

  Amber shook her head in disbelief, not needing to read the rest, not needing to read the crucial portion. She had committed the e-mail to memory when she’d first received it. She’d been in her office, preparing to head home, weary and dejected. The e-mail had set her off—simultaneously frightened and angered and frustrated her.

  Whose business was she poking into? She cared about a lot of people, but as far as she knew, she wasn’t actually interfering with anyone’s life. Not even Letha seemed to think so when she’d asked her about Ryan. She’d thanked Amber for caring enough to “ask the hard questions.”

  And how dare someone call her life perfect?

  She’d lived a lonely, hardworking existence the first twenty years she’d been at the Village. Sure, she’d enjoyed her job, but she had worked hard at it, and no one could have called those years perfect.

  Then she’d endured two murder investigations, and yes, she had even helped to capture the culprits.

  In the midst of those terrible events, God had seen fit to bless her with Tate, to show her real friendship through Hannah and Pam and Preston. She would not apologize for any of those things.

  It seemed wrong to do so.

  It seemed ungrateful.

  And yet she was edgy. This delusional person was operating on two fronts—the pies left with the threatening notes and the e-mails to her. Why?

  She placed the question at the top of the sheet of yellow lined paper. She’d rather have been working on her tablet, but she no longer trusted any of her technology to be secure. This person was adept at crossing normal tech barriers, such as spam filters. Could they also break into the server that automatically backed up both her tablet and her work computer? She couldn’t risk it, so she settled for jotting notes on the piece of paper.

  And did the degree of computer skills mean the person was Englisch rather than Amish? She added that question to her list.

  Motive? The person wanted to gain something. What?

  Gender? It would be easy to assume a woman, but assuming could land her in deeper trouble.

  Background? W
hoever was doing this had some experience in baking, obviously. If she listed every person in Middlebury skilled in the kitchen, the names would include at least two-thirds of the area’s population.

  Sighing, she flipped to a clean page on the tablet.

  It was time to face the biggest question. Who was this person? She stared at the blank page for several moments before she slowly began to list names, going with her gut instincts as she considered each person she came into contact with daily. With each name she wrote down, it felt as if her heart were enduring a blunt force. These were people she knew. People she might count as friends, or at least close acquaintances. Who could harbor such resentment toward her and yet keep it hidden all this time?

  Finally she turned to a third page and drew a line down the middle. The left column she titled “Steps to Take.” Across the right she wrote “Things Not to Do.” One thing was for certain—the perpetrator was spying on her at work and possibly at home.

  She could not go to her family or friends for help.

  She could not continue to arouse their suspicions.

  She could not go to the police—not yet.

  Last, she could not afford to ignore the e-mailer’s demands.

  So what could she do? Try to placate the person, keep them calm. She could keep her eyes open, and pay attention to everything going on at the Village—and this did center around the Village, though two pies had shown up elsewhere. Something told her that was a distraction. This was a vendetta against her, and it was something else too. But what?

  She could and would keep her family and friends at a distance—she drew a circle around this one. It wasn’t in her nature, but she’d do what she must. And sharing these personal threats with them, even sharing them with Tate, could only drag people she loved into the middle of something that might be about to explode. She wouldn’t do that again. Tate had been in danger when they caught Owen’s killer. Hannah and Jesse had nearly been hurt by Ethan Gray’s killer. No, she wouldn’t allow that to happen again. She’d do whatever was necessary to keep them out of it.

  At the moment, that seemed to include eating a little humble pie. For whatever reason this person wanted to see her publicly humiliated. All right. Amber had never been a prideful person, and she didn’t mind being ridiculed if it bought them some time. So she turned to yet one more clean sheet of paper and began to list her five biggest faults.

  Preston had gone to sleep worried and distracted. Even brushing Mocha hadn’t helped, though that was something he’d learned to enjoy in the last few days. The dog was a good companion. She filled places in his life, in his heart, that he didn’t realize were vacant.

  She offered unconditional love, even though they’d known each other only a few days. Perhaps that was why folks were crazy about their pets. Preston had never understood it before, but now he did. Looking into Mocha’s trusting eyes, he knew she was a blessing straight from God, just as Tate had said.

  He’d been thinking of those things as he prepared for bed, and he’d immediately fallen into a restless sleep.

  It seemed the dreams began as soon as his head hit the pillow. Twice he startled awake, only to find Mocha sitting patiently by the side of his bed. Each time, she’d licked his hand once, then padded to her bed in the corner of his room and settled down on it.

  The second time he gulped down the glass of water he kept beside his bed, and quickly fell into another agitated slumber—straight into his past.

  Frank lay against the wall of the cave. He lay so still that Preston worried he might have died.

  “Frank. Frank. Talk to me.”

  The man who had been his friend since he’d arrived in Wanat stirred, glanced left and right, then stared into Preston’s eyes. “It’s not looking so good.”

  “No, it’s not. But we’re going to find a way out of this.”

  “Bogar?”

  Preston shook his head. He’d somehow managed to drag the man’s body to the back of the cave and cover him with his own jacket. Though the night had turned cold, it was better than leaving him exposed to the night air. That had seemed disrespectful and the final nail in their respective coffins. He had to cling to the hope that help was coming.

  “You’re bleeding,” Frank said.

  “Not a problem. I can still fire my weapon.”

  “If you’ll move me . . .”

  “I’m not moving you anywhere.”

  “Move me to the front.” Frank’s expression twitched into a smile. “We go down fighting if we’re going down.”

  Preston didn’t struggle with the decision for long. If they were attacked while in the cave, they had no chance of surviving. Sure, they could take quite a few of the insurgents out with them, but they wouldn’t survive it. The numbers weren’t on their side.

  Their only hope was to hold their position and wait for reinforcements.

  Grudgingly he checked Frank’s leg. If anything, it looked worse than before, more swollen, darker, and hot to the touch. The bleeding had slowed, but he had lost too much blood before Preston had managed to put the compress on. How did Frank manage to stay conscious? How did he endure the pain? Perhaps he was in shock; however, Preston knew Frank was a fine soldier. As long as he was breathing, he’d defend his brothers-in-arms.

  As gently as possible he moved him to the front of the cave. By positioning him against the wall, Frank was able to rest his rifle on a boulder and scope the right side of the openings. Preston took up position across from him, covering the left side.

  They’d been waiting, in the dark, for over an hour when the firing began. The sound of artillery filled the night, and smoke soon made breathing difficult. Once again he found himself crying out to God, praying for mercy and grace. Preston woke to a blinding light and Mocha’s sharp bark.

  The dog sat less than two feet in front of him, barking at regular three-second intervals.

  Somehow Preston had fallen from the bed and crawled toward the bathroom door, dragging his covers with him.

  “It’s okay, girl. I’m okay.” The words came out in a shaky murmur. Mocha stepped closer, licked his hand, and waited. He reached for her, and she practically climbed into his lap. “I’m okay. Good girl. Good dog.”

  Sweat slicked his skin, and it took a moment to firmly root himself in reality. The clock on the nightstand proclaimed it to be two a.m. Preston’s first reaction to the flashback was “not again,” but as he studied his bedroom, he couldn’t help comparing what he saw to the previous instance—the one where he’d broken the nightstand and woken crouched in the corner.

  This time nothing was broken.

  In fact, the room looked exactly as it had when he’d turned off the lights—the only difference being the tangle of covers he’d pulled with him as he’d crawled across the floor, crawled across the cave. His dream came back to him in an instant.

  They’d needed more ammo, and he’d crawled to the back of the cave to retrieve what Bogar still had on his person. The man had been blown back into the entrance of the cave when he was hit, and now he lay under Preston’s jacket. As Preston had crawled to the back something had come through the mouth of the cave. He’d thought it was a grenade or other type of IED. However, it hadn’t been an improvised explosive device or a grenade. It had been an IFAK—an individual first aid kit.

  He’d understood in that moment that they were rescued.

  He’d understood that it was over.

  Mocha whined again, cocking her head and staring at him with her dark eyes.

  “You did good, girl. You did real good.”

  He hadn’t torn up the room. He hadn’t endangered anyone. And Mocha had done what she had been trained to do.

  For the first time in many years, Preston felt hope surge through his doubts.

  Twenty-Four

  Hannah wished just one day would proceed as she had planned. She had not intended to go into the Village on Saturday, but she ran out of the paper they were using for wedding invitations. Usually she wou
ld purchase such items at the general store in town, but with her employee discount, the stationery sold in Katie’s Mercantile was less expensive.

  “Go on. We’ve finished the cleaning here.” Eunice wiped Mattie’s mouth. Hannah’s little sister had managed to wear more of her banana and peanut butter than she’d swallowed.

  “I’ll help clean up this little one first.” Hannah took the dish towel from her mother and smiled at Mattie. How she would miss her little sister when she moved to Jesse’s.

  Yes, she’d be only a little way down the road.

  Yes, she’d see her several times a week.

  And yes, she was being a tad sentimental.

  However, the sense that things were changing, quickly and irrevocably, sometimes overwhelmed her.

  Mattie lightened the mood by touching her fingers to Hannah’s lips and attempting to share what was left of her lunch.

  “Danki, little girl.”

  “Danki, wittle girl.” Mattie cocked her head and then reminded Hannah, “Mattie’s big, not wittle!”

  “Of course you are. Big enough to pick up your toys in the sitting room?”

  “Ya. Down, Hannah. Let me down.”

  Hannah managed one last dab with the dish towel at the corner of Mattie’s mouth before her sister dashed off to the living room.

  “I’ll be back in an hour,” she called to her mother as she pulled her purse off the peg in the mud room.

  “Don’t rush. Mattie and I are going to read a story, and then perhaps one of us will take a nap.”

  “No nap.” Mattie had picked her letter blocks up from the floor and dumped them into her toy basket. Now she was plopped down beside them, pulling each one out again.

  The last glimpse Hannah had of her family was her mother easing into the rocker, Mattie on the floor, and her brothers and father out in the field. It was a peaceful, comforting image that immediately embedded itself in her memory.